Jaylen Moore watches Austin Collins do a handstand at the Champions of North Dallas apartments, off the Dallas North Tollway between Addison Airport and the Bush Turnpike.

Every community needs a gathering spot, and in this stretch of Irving’s Valley Ranch, that happens to be the Java Me Up coffeehouse, just off busy MacArthur Boulevard.

The country-store-style café, linked to the Valley Ranch branch of the Irving Public Library, sits beside one of the many trails snaking through the apartment-rich neighborhood. Cyclists, dog walkers and moms pushing strollers all stop by, as do library patrons and chiropractic students from nearby Parker College.

“We had a rough start, but we’ve become the neighborhood hangout,” said Patricia Ward, whose cackling laugh and attentiveness to customers endear her to local residents. “At some point or another, everybody comes through here.”

Irving might not come to mind as a hotbed of dense urban living, but this portion of Valley Ranch and two stretches of North Dallas took the top three spots among the best places for urban dwellers as part of a yearlong data analysis by The Dallas Morning News.

Of nearly 1,200 census tracts in the Dallas region, 64 qualified as “urban,” defined as housing at least 10,000 people per square mile. Some areas that might seem shoo-ins — for instance, retail- and apartment-rich Knox-Henderson — failed to finish high because of low-performing schools.

The top-rated areas are marked mostly by cornrow-like swaths of apartments, with shopping, restaurants and walking paths either easily accessed on foot or a short drive away.

In central Dallas, that included predictable places such as Uptown, Oak Lawn and The Village. But the list was topped by Far North Dallas, namely the Galleria area northeast of where Interstate 635 intersects with the Dallas North Tollway and, farther north along the toll road, the area between Addison Airport and the President George Bush Turnpike.

These areas aren’t necessarily all polished and ritzy, either: There’s north Carrollton, with its Asian and Latin markets ringing cookie-cutter apartments where Indian families gather on balconies dotted with little pink bicycles. And in Garland, the Arbor Creek neighborhood near Walnut Creek Library is decidedly low-income, with two nearby shopping malls dominated by Mexican and Vietnamese businesses.

Irving’s 30-year-old Valley Ranch development unfurls along MacArthur Boulevard north of I-635, just west of the verdant Trinity River Basin. But it’s the area north of Ranch Trail Road, east of MacArthur and south and west of arcing Valley Ranch Parkway East that ranked high for urban dwellers.

Just south of the Dallas Cowboys training facility, it’s full of sprawling apartment centers as orderly and well-groomed as nearby Sam Houston Trail Park: The Highlands of Valley Ranch. The Enclave at Valley Ranch. The Oaks of Valley Ranch.

“It’s kind of an oasis in an urban area,” said single dad Damon Stanford, who moved to Valley Ranch in 2001 from northeast Oklahoma. Besides the access to good schools, it’s the scenery that really speaks to him — trails, parks, tony Las Colinas.

“The scenery really justifies its location,” said Stanford, who runs a mobile photography and graphic design business. “It’s a beautiful place to live.”

Last year, Ed McMahon of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research group, told the Dallas Business Journal that redevelopment of the suburbs would be one of the great challenges in the next stage of urban planning.

“There’s a huge and growing demand for more walkable communities in the suburbs,” he told the Journal. “There’s a changing demographic of people that don’t have school-age children and are living alone — either the younger generation or baby boomers — that want to live someplace more convenient than in the past, and there’s a huge mismatch in demand and supply.”

Now, that is playing out: Land-use paradigms are shifting, he said, as people become less willing to drive long distances for their wants and needs. “For the first time in 50 years, the majority of metro areas are seeing growth in mixed-use, transit-oriented, walkable settings,” he said.

According to the Center for Metropolitan Density at the University of Texas at Arlington, high-density developments foster more transportation options, better workplace and residential choices and more social interaction. And an important ingredient in many such areas, said center director Michael Buckley, is the number of quality ethnic restaurants.

“People are looking for real, and real is the real mom-and-pop café,” he said. “You need those little spots with unusual presentation. It helps brand an area.”

Ward, of Irving’s Java Me Up, credits Valley Ranch leaders with fostering community through events like a recent recycling day and efforts like “A Taste of Valley Ranch,” a brochure listing the 36 restaurants peppering the area, a good portion of them Indian.

The neighborhood association’s managing company coordinates community events like an annual ladybug release and an annual Vegas Night held at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Las Colinas.

“People feel like it’s a big party,” said Chris Schappaugh, the association’s community manager. “They interact, get to know their neighbors and become aware of how our demographics are playing out.”

Such community events foster familiarity, he said, and thus a safer community. But density, too, is a factor: Proximity breeds interaction.

“The closer you are, you’re forced to interact,” Schappaugh said. “You want your interactions to be positive. I believe a good community is a communicative community.”

Seshu Madabushi thinks so.

The India native, who runs an advertising business, moved to Valley Ranch 10 years ago from Fairfax, Va. His wife teaches at a renowned charter high school in the area, but Coppell’s well-regarded schools are also a draw for education-oriented Indian families who don’t mind paying higher housing prices.

“I like this neighborhood,” Madabushi said. “Everything is within walking distance.”

The Madabushis’ home is near the movie theater, which is near the Wal-Mart, which is near the freeway, but the best thing about it might be the abutting park: Madabushi took his parents there when they visited from out of town.

“That’s actually one of the nicest areas in terms of gathering places,” he said.

Schappaugh said the community’s affordable and varied housing also promotes longevity.

“One thing we hear from owners is that they can rent an apartment here, then buy a starter home, then a home for their children,” Schappaugh said. “Then they can downsize when the children move out, and then retire here, all in Valley Ranch.